spectrwm[1], formerly known as Scrotwm, is a minimalist window manager written by OpenBSD hackers. It provides keyboard shortcuts, a configuration file, and assumes that the user prefers to use the command line. Figure 6.12a provides a screenshot of spectrwm running on a PC-BSD® system.

Figure 6.12a: spectrwm on a PC-BSD® System

If you have not used spectrwm before, spend some time reading through its man page[2] first.

To launch applications within spectrwm, start an xterm by pressing Alt+Shift+Return. Once you have an xterm, you can start any program you wish. For example, to start Control Panel type pc-controlpanel.

spectrwm does not provide minimize, maximize, or close buttons within its windows. To close a GUI application, use Ctrl-c within the xterm you used to launch the application. To leave this desktop, type killall spectrwm from an xterm.